Newark Earthworks editorial essay - Spring 2022
Jeff Gill
On foot around the earthworks
___
Over the last thirty-plus years, I've had the pleasure of leading thousands of people on tours of the Newark Earthworks.
They arrive on school buses, some in tour coaches riding high, or in flotillas of cars from the local college campus.
Groups are a large number of our visitors, but people come from farther away individually or as couples, unscheduled and uncertain, sometimes attaching themselves to larger groups as we walk and talk. And on open house days or other planned events, those of us who lead tours meet people who sometimes came after weeks and months of planning and anticipation.
Whether a retired couple on vacation, or three yellow busloads of excited and energetic schoolchildren, one part of the process I enjoy is helping visitors get their feet on the ground, and seeing the earthworks as the original builders did, two thousand years ago, shortly after the construction phase was over.
And while the big groups coming to see the major preservation locations are rewarding to guide and inform, at the Great Circle off Rt. 79 and the Octagon Earthworks at the end of Parkview and 33rd St., they are but two sections of what was originally a four and a half square mile geometric earthen enclosure. Yes, we've lost a great deal; yes, we should be thankful for the foresight of community leaders and average citizens who set aside the Circle as county fairgrounds by 1854, and saw fit to tax themselves to purchase and preserve the Octagon earthworks in a public vote of 1892.
But what I've come to truly enjoy is taking groups, a dozen or two at a time, on foot across the landscape of modern Newark, to visit the pieces that have, in most cases, been accidentally preserved. Some now have protections around them, others at risk, but my best strategy right now I believe is simply to take people to see them, step by step, and raise our awareness of just how much remains even between our two grand monuments at either end of the majestic original whole.
There are subtleties in how the Native American builders used the landscape, and how the terrain today both hides and can help reveal what was built here millennia ago. You can't catch it as you drive along in your car; from a high bus window you miss much traveling in between. And our contemporary obsession with aerial views, overhead maps, now drone perspectives, can lift our eyes so far up we miss what's right at our feet.
These tours are quiet and discreet; we travel on public streets and sidewalks, and a few alleys, but some of what we're viewing is beyond where we can go, so I don't promote these locations casually. The Wright Earthworks is owned by the Ohio History Connection, a central fragment whose location can be shared abroad, and where we can triangulate from there to lost elements now only seen on old maps . . . or occasionally, to locate another small piece hiding in plain sight.
The research, the learning, the discovery still continues. Sometimes, just step by step.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he leads tours as a volunteer with the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State Newark and for the Ohio History Connection, and is a World Heritage Ambassador.
=+=+=+=
Newark Earthworks editorial essay - Summer 2022
Jeff Gill
Moving earth across the landscape
___
One challenge we have in doing what's called "interpretation" of the Newark Earthworks are the assumptions, and even misconceptions many visitors bring to the sites.
Interpretation is the kind of non-formal education that park rangers and tour guides do. Interpretation isn't education in that there's not a set outcome in mind, of grades or credits or course participation scores. You participate for a very different set of motivations: social, family, personal reasons for taking a trip, spending some of your leisure at a place where you can learn or just relax and pick up a different point of view.
Obviously education and interpretation have a fair amount of overlap in terms of tools and techniques, but the biggest difference is that your visitors can walk away at any time. Students in school usually don't have that option. So a good interpreter knows they can't just lecture, shouldn't try to be merely entertaining, but there's a tricky balance to maintain.
This is why it's hard to deal with mistaken assumptions. If someone voluntarily comes and joins in an interpretive program or takes a guided walk, and says "but we know aliens built all of this, right?" we might be a little argumentative. What you don't always know is exactly what your visitors are assuming, and how that's shaping the way they hear what you're telling them.
There are words, for that reason, we avoid. "Savage" I hope we all understand is an inaccurate as well as unhelpful term; "primitive" is right up there from my point of view. Some visitors do start from an assumption that if you don't have written records, or metal alloys, or gunpowder, you're not a civilization, but they'd be quite mistaken.
In fact, one of the archaeological and anthropological marvels around the Newark Earthworks scholarship we've done thus far, is how we see not only the engineering precision built into this four and a half square mile complex of geometric earthworks, but the social complexity we're only just starting to come to understand.
Briefly put, there are major civil engineering projects in ancient history around the world, and in this hemisphere, of pyramids and monuments and causeways and roads, all of which took large numbers of workers. But almost without exception, the archaeological record shows in funerary remains and nutritional analysis of teeth and bones that there was some serious social stratification in those cultures. There were bosses, kings or priests or poobahs, who show less wear and tear on the bones and better food in their bellies. And there were workers, servants, even slaves, who lived notably less well.
Through the Middle Woodland period of the Ohio Valley, in the population archaeologists call the Hopewell Culture, we don't find this. Slave labor, even significant social stratification, doesn't appear in the archaeological record. This is significant.
Because to built earthen enclosures made up of literally millions of basket loads of soil and clays, sometimes brought from miles away, you need hundreds or more likely thousands of people voluntarily working together. Working hard, and apparently without coercion. This is quite a civilization, and I'd like to ease my visitors around to leaving behind their assumptions about early America, and call it an advanced civilization, in its own unique way.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he leads tours as a volunteer with the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State Newark and for the Ohio History Connection, and is a World Heritage Ambassador.
=+=+=+=
Newark Earthworks editorial essay - Fall 2022
Jeff Gill
Taking shelter from the storms
___
Every year, as the nights get longer and the weather gets colder, I think about the Native American builders of the Newark Earthworks, of their ancestors in what we call the Archaic period and even before that the Paleoindian era, and how they faced the coming winter.
The lives of the indigenous people to North America were different than ours today, no doubt, but I think it's more helpful to start with what we have in common rather than to dwell on the fact that they had neither cars nor speeding tickets.
In fact, pausing as I walk in the evening to think about how those ancient builders got ready for a night in Ohio helps me look at my own evening routine a little differently.
Look, much of what we call a house is a machine for doing two things. Keeping the water off of us, whether rain, sleet, or dew, and for keeping heat inside, which is why we yell at our kids about leaving doors hanging open. And that's another thing I suspect has not changed in 12,000 years or so.
Modern houses have pitch roofs, gutters, downspouts, and drains. American Indian inhabitants of what we now call Licking County are known to have built what are commonly called wigwams, domed or cone shaped structures which are different from the more stereotypical "teepee," which is more of a Plains Indian living quarters.
Different tribes and languages have a variety of words which adjoin wigwam, but basically you're talking about a well crafted structure, with poles made from more flexible saplings placed in the ground, bent across to a partner opposite and lashed together. A framework of such poles would be lashed with spruce roots or other natural materials carefully selected for toughness with flexibility. The structure would then be covered with panels of bark taken off of suitable trees, and in some situations animal hides might be used; in the early historic records we read about woven panels which could be rolled up and transported if the residents were moving.
Those same records tell us moss sheets or woven grass mats could be packed around the bark to divert the rain and fend off heavy winds. Doorways were usually covered by animal hides.
When it rained or blew, I imagine the head of a household in the valleys along Raccoon Creek wondering "will the roof hold? will it leak?" Whether shingles nailed by a hired crew, or bark mats caulked with moss and reeds, the questions and worries are really just the same.
And instead of worrying about the furnace, when it was last serviced, and if I need to replace the air filter, in a wigwam was a central fire pit, used for cooking, illumination, and warmth. If there was enough firewood at hand, and it was a quiet night, you and your family would watch the smoke rise up through the carefully crafted smoke hole at the peak of the wigwam, and see the stars flicker just beyond.
The houses are different, but the concerns have not changed. And the good feeling of knowing your family is being kept dry, kept warm, and together in your home here in Licking County.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he leads tours as a volunteer with the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State Newark and for the Ohio History Connection, and is a World Heritage Ambassador.
Friday, February 04, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 2-17-22
Notes from my Knapsack 2-17-22
Jeff Gill
Preserve, enhance, advance
___
For Granville and western Licking County, as we all see some dramatic changes coming as clearly as a squall line sweeping down out of the sky, I have three words of counsel.
Of course, I have more than those three, but this is what came to mind as I drove around, during the reflections I wrote about here last time, about the land we're going to see transformed into globally significant factories and economically disruptive locations.
Preserve, enhance, advance.
Preserve: the reality is, was, and always will be that we can't save it all. We cannot and should not want to preserve everything like a fly in amber, with the same stiffness not to say deadness that would result. Broadway and its businesses are not the same as it all was when I first moved here; some I miss, some I have trouble remembering. There are views we had from my house that are now blocked by new buildings which may or may not make my heart sing. I could have bought that lot across the road to prevent someone from building on it, and I did not, so I lose a particular vista.
The same is true for communities, townships, regions. The green space efforts we've made now look even wiser than they did at the time; zoning disputes are already happening where developers and builders are looking for maximum return even before the chip factory news. The time is now for us to figure out a) what do we want to preserve, and b) how much will we pay for it? Natural, historical, familiar things might all change soon: what do we want to preserve?
Enhance: since we can't preserve everything, we have to look at what it takes, as a communal endeavor, politically or in other civic arenas, to shore up and secure what we do have that we're going to keep. Schools and education are usually at the top of this list, but perhaps we've been content too long with a two item list of "excellent schools and a small town way of life." Seriously, what specific features do we want to make better, stronger, more secure as change like a rip tide washes around us?
Advance: Seven generations. If I have learned anything in the wonderful opportunity I've had in working with Native American groups and tribes and individuals in the last few decades in reference to the Newark Earthworks, it's the principle shared across many tribal nations and indigenous cultures in North America: how does this decision have an impact seven generations on? What in roughly 150 years will this choice mean? And if you can't answer the seven generations question, you haven't come up with a solution of any sort worth the name.
Preserve, enhance, advance. Because for good or ill, there are few things more socially disruptive than economic development. Anything we do not as a community make an intentional choice to preserve and maintain is going to be dramatically changed in the next few decades. And we can't preserve everything.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's seen a few communities change, sometimes for the better, sometimes otherwise. Tell him what you'd like to preserve at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Preserve, enhance, advance
___
For Granville and western Licking County, as we all see some dramatic changes coming as clearly as a squall line sweeping down out of the sky, I have three words of counsel.
Of course, I have more than those three, but this is what came to mind as I drove around, during the reflections I wrote about here last time, about the land we're going to see transformed into globally significant factories and economically disruptive locations.
Preserve, enhance, advance.
Preserve: the reality is, was, and always will be that we can't save it all. We cannot and should not want to preserve everything like a fly in amber, with the same stiffness not to say deadness that would result. Broadway and its businesses are not the same as it all was when I first moved here; some I miss, some I have trouble remembering. There are views we had from my house that are now blocked by new buildings which may or may not make my heart sing. I could have bought that lot across the road to prevent someone from building on it, and I did not, so I lose a particular vista.
The same is true for communities, townships, regions. The green space efforts we've made now look even wiser than they did at the time; zoning disputes are already happening where developers and builders are looking for maximum return even before the chip factory news. The time is now for us to figure out a) what do we want to preserve, and b) how much will we pay for it? Natural, historical, familiar things might all change soon: what do we want to preserve?
Enhance: since we can't preserve everything, we have to look at what it takes, as a communal endeavor, politically or in other civic arenas, to shore up and secure what we do have that we're going to keep. Schools and education are usually at the top of this list, but perhaps we've been content too long with a two item list of "excellent schools and a small town way of life." Seriously, what specific features do we want to make better, stronger, more secure as change like a rip tide washes around us?
Advance: Seven generations. If I have learned anything in the wonderful opportunity I've had in working with Native American groups and tribes and individuals in the last few decades in reference to the Newark Earthworks, it's the principle shared across many tribal nations and indigenous cultures in North America: how does this decision have an impact seven generations on? What in roughly 150 years will this choice mean? And if you can't answer the seven generations question, you haven't come up with a solution of any sort worth the name.
Preserve, enhance, advance. Because for good or ill, there are few things more socially disruptive than economic development. Anything we do not as a community make an intentional choice to preserve and maintain is going to be dramatically changed in the next few decades. And we can't preserve everything.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's seen a few communities change, sometimes for the better, sometimes otherwise. Tell him what you'd like to preserve at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Faith Works 2-12-22
Faith Works 2-12-22
Jeff Gill
Birthing classes and funeral rehearsals
___
As if on schedule, a social media furor broke out, as they're always doing, about on-line worship.
A person whom I have read somewhat from, and think generally well of, surprised me and from what I could tell on social media quite a few others by saying she believed churches should stop offering online or "virtual" worship, in pretty much any form. Her answer in advance to the question of "what about the home bound" was that congregations should go back to what many had been doing before, and sending trained leaders, lay or ordained, to bring communion or some form of personal presence into those places, but not use video worship as a way to provide that.
Perhaps it was a cheerful sort of well meant trolling. Sometimes folks see the word "trolling" and assume it's a personal affront, an insult that should cut to the bone, but . . . some of the nicest people I know are trolls! By which I mean that folks can adopt an online persona that's garish and drastic and much more emphatic than they actually are. Even fairly mild-mannered people can post something for effect, put an opinion out there on the very fringe of what they actually believe, in aid of getting attention, discussion, clicks to engage with their actually much less controversial stance.
And on the "all churches should drop online worship entirely" front, I detect a bit of walking back. This is written far enough ahead I'm not sure what the next chapter for that particular blogger will be, but I'm going to follow up her point, which is where I think the positive spin on trolling can be accepted, as long as it's okay for me to disagree. Starting with the point that came to my mind immediately and was posted by myriad others: how ironic is it that we're reading this polemic about online worship . . . online?
I just got done rushing over in advance of our recent winter storm to stay with an elderly relative, fearing power outages and such. One challenge: the newspaper did not come as usual. Now, the local paper there, as here, is going through some changes, and obviously the trends are towards the digital platforms. People want their news on their phones, or their devices, et cetera . . . except for the ones who want it in their hands, on newsprint, leaving ink on their fingers.
Poignantly for me, one of my last conversations with my father was about the shifts in print publication frequency and the growth of online news outlets. He said, I kid you not, "I don't know that I want to live in a world where I don't get a newspaper every morning." Well, that resolved itself not perhaps how I'd wish. Meanwhile, in 2022, my aged relation wanted the morning's newspaper, and me showing it to him on my laptop was no satisfaction at all. He wanted his paper! And blessedly it came, albeit later in the day.
But we all know that in March, changes that have come elsewhere in the country arrive for us, with Saturday news online and digital, but not in print form. And I'm sure changes will continue, some of which I may not like all that much.
That's newspapers. For worship, we not only want, I'm with the pseudo-trollish minister who says we need face-to-face and in-person worship. We do. There's much about the life of faith, like my metaphor last week of "birthing classes and funeral rehearsals" that only go so far on video lessons and recorded experiences. We need to get back to together, I do not dispute it.
Yet to bar even the option, for fear people will use it . . . I think of how Christians went a millennium and a half without personal Bibles. No one had personal, private copies of Scripture. They were hand made, cost the moon, and if you had one in church it was chained to the preaching desk. You learned God's Word in preaching, art, through the liturgy.
Then that meddler Gutenberg came along, and next thing you know paperback copies of the Bible are handed out for free by the Gideons, and now we all have access, but do we have better knowledge?
Allow me to troll a bit. I think all Bibles should be turned in, and we can only hear and learn from Scripture by going to church, then we'll get back the community and commitment of the medieval period. What do you think?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been called a troll once or twice. Tell him how you've learned not to feed the trolls at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Birthing classes and funeral rehearsals
___
As if on schedule, a social media furor broke out, as they're always doing, about on-line worship.
A person whom I have read somewhat from, and think generally well of, surprised me and from what I could tell on social media quite a few others by saying she believed churches should stop offering online or "virtual" worship, in pretty much any form. Her answer in advance to the question of "what about the home bound" was that congregations should go back to what many had been doing before, and sending trained leaders, lay or ordained, to bring communion or some form of personal presence into those places, but not use video worship as a way to provide that.
Perhaps it was a cheerful sort of well meant trolling. Sometimes folks see the word "trolling" and assume it's a personal affront, an insult that should cut to the bone, but . . . some of the nicest people I know are trolls! By which I mean that folks can adopt an online persona that's garish and drastic and much more emphatic than they actually are. Even fairly mild-mannered people can post something for effect, put an opinion out there on the very fringe of what they actually believe, in aid of getting attention, discussion, clicks to engage with their actually much less controversial stance.
And on the "all churches should drop online worship entirely" front, I detect a bit of walking back. This is written far enough ahead I'm not sure what the next chapter for that particular blogger will be, but I'm going to follow up her point, which is where I think the positive spin on trolling can be accepted, as long as it's okay for me to disagree. Starting with the point that came to my mind immediately and was posted by myriad others: how ironic is it that we're reading this polemic about online worship . . . online?
I just got done rushing over in advance of our recent winter storm to stay with an elderly relative, fearing power outages and such. One challenge: the newspaper did not come as usual. Now, the local paper there, as here, is going through some changes, and obviously the trends are towards the digital platforms. People want their news on their phones, or their devices, et cetera . . . except for the ones who want it in their hands, on newsprint, leaving ink on their fingers.
Poignantly for me, one of my last conversations with my father was about the shifts in print publication frequency and the growth of online news outlets. He said, I kid you not, "I don't know that I want to live in a world where I don't get a newspaper every morning." Well, that resolved itself not perhaps how I'd wish. Meanwhile, in 2022, my aged relation wanted the morning's newspaper, and me showing it to him on my laptop was no satisfaction at all. He wanted his paper! And blessedly it came, albeit later in the day.
But we all know that in March, changes that have come elsewhere in the country arrive for us, with Saturday news online and digital, but not in print form. And I'm sure changes will continue, some of which I may not like all that much.
That's newspapers. For worship, we not only want, I'm with the pseudo-trollish minister who says we need face-to-face and in-person worship. We do. There's much about the life of faith, like my metaphor last week of "birthing classes and funeral rehearsals" that only go so far on video lessons and recorded experiences. We need to get back to together, I do not dispute it.
Yet to bar even the option, for fear people will use it . . . I think of how Christians went a millennium and a half without personal Bibles. No one had personal, private copies of Scripture. They were hand made, cost the moon, and if you had one in church it was chained to the preaching desk. You learned God's Word in preaching, art, through the liturgy.
Then that meddler Gutenberg came along, and next thing you know paperback copies of the Bible are handed out for free by the Gideons, and now we all have access, but do we have better knowledge?
Allow me to troll a bit. I think all Bibles should be turned in, and we can only hear and learn from Scripture by going to church, then we'll get back the community and commitment of the medieval period. What do you think?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been called a troll once or twice. Tell him how you've learned not to feed the trolls at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Newark Earthworks essays for the Advocate
Newark Earthworks editorial essay - Spring 2022
Jeff Gill
On foot around the earthworks
___
Over the last thirty-plus years, I've had the pleasure of leading thousands of people on tours of the Newark Earthworks.
They arrive on school buses, some in tour coaches riding high, or in flotillas of cars from the local college campus.
Groups are a large number of our visitors, but people come from farther away individually or as couples, unscheduled and uncertain, sometimes attaching themselves to larger groups as we walk and talk. And on open house days or other planned events, those of us who lead tours meet people who sometimes came after weeks and months of planning and anticipation.
Whether a retired couple on vacation, or three yellow busloads of excited and energetic schoolchildren, one part of the process I enjoy is helping visitors get their feet on the ground, and seeing the earthworks as the original builders did, two thousand years ago, shortly after the construction phase was over.
And while the big groups coming to see the major preservation locations are rewarding to guide and inform, at the Great Circle off Rt. 79 and the Octagon Earthworks at the end of Parkview and 33rd St., they are but two sections of what was originally a four and a half square mile geometric earthen enclosure. Yes, we've lost a great deal; yes, we should be thankful for the foresight of community leaders and average citizens who set aside the Circle as county fairgrounds by 1854, and saw fit to tax themselves to purchase and preserve the Octagon earthworks in a public vote of 1892.
But what I've come to truly enjoy is taking groups, a dozen or two at a time, on foot across the landscape of modern Newark, to visit the pieces that have, in most cases, been accidentally preserved. Some now have protections around them, others at risk, but my best strategy right now I believe is simply to take people to see them, step by step, and raise our awareness of just how much remains even between our two grand monuments at either end of the majestic original whole.
There are subtleties in how the Native American builders used the landscape, and how the terrain today both hides and can help reveal what was built here millennia ago. You can't catch it as you drive along in your car; from a high bus window you miss much traveling in between. And our contemporary obsession with aerial views, overhead maps, now drone perspectives, can lift our eyes so far up we miss what's right at our feet.
These tours are quiet and discreet; we travel on public streets and sidewalks, and a few alleys, but some of what we're viewing is beyond where we can go, so I don't promote these locations casually. The Wright Earthworks is owned by the Ohio History Connection, a central fragment whose location can be shared abroad, and where we can triangulate from there to lost elements now only seen on old maps . . . or occasionally, to locate another small piece hiding in plain sight.
The research, the learning, the discovery still continues. Sometimes, just step by step.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he leads tours as a volunteer with the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State Newark and for the Ohio History Connection, and is a World Heritage Ambassador.
Jeff Gill
On foot around the earthworks
___
Over the last thirty-plus years, I've had the pleasure of leading thousands of people on tours of the Newark Earthworks.
They arrive on school buses, some in tour coaches riding high, or in flotillas of cars from the local college campus.
Groups are a large number of our visitors, but people come from farther away individually or as couples, unscheduled and uncertain, sometimes attaching themselves to larger groups as we walk and talk. And on open house days or other planned events, those of us who lead tours meet people who sometimes came after weeks and months of planning and anticipation.
Whether a retired couple on vacation, or three yellow busloads of excited and energetic schoolchildren, one part of the process I enjoy is helping visitors get their feet on the ground, and seeing the earthworks as the original builders did, two thousand years ago, shortly after the construction phase was over.
And while the big groups coming to see the major preservation locations are rewarding to guide and inform, at the Great Circle off Rt. 79 and the Octagon Earthworks at the end of Parkview and 33rd St., they are but two sections of what was originally a four and a half square mile geometric earthen enclosure. Yes, we've lost a great deal; yes, we should be thankful for the foresight of community leaders and average citizens who set aside the Circle as county fairgrounds by 1854, and saw fit to tax themselves to purchase and preserve the Octagon earthworks in a public vote of 1892.
But what I've come to truly enjoy is taking groups, a dozen or two at a time, on foot across the landscape of modern Newark, to visit the pieces that have, in most cases, been accidentally preserved. Some now have protections around them, others at risk, but my best strategy right now I believe is simply to take people to see them, step by step, and raise our awareness of just how much remains even between our two grand monuments at either end of the majestic original whole.
There are subtleties in how the Native American builders used the landscape, and how the terrain today both hides and can help reveal what was built here millennia ago. You can't catch it as you drive along in your car; from a high bus window you miss much traveling in between. And our contemporary obsession with aerial views, overhead maps, now drone perspectives, can lift our eyes so far up we miss what's right at our feet.
These tours are quiet and discreet; we travel on public streets and sidewalks, and a few alleys, but some of what we're viewing is beyond where we can go, so I don't promote these locations casually. The Wright Earthworks is owned by the Ohio History Connection, a central fragment whose location can be shared abroad, and where we can triangulate from there to lost elements now only seen on old maps . . . or occasionally, to locate another small piece hiding in plain sight.
The research, the learning, the discovery still continues. Sometimes, just step by step.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he leads tours as a volunteer with the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State Newark and for the Ohio History Connection, and is a World Heritage Ambassador.
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